Damien: Omen II

"Damien: Omen II"(1978, Don Taylor, 20th Century Fox) is the second "Omen" Film, taking place seven years after the first, when Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) has been raised to age of 12 by his uncle (William Holden) and his wife (Lee Grant).

Damien and his cousin, Mark (Lucas Donat) are best friends. Both are enjoying the wealthy lifestyle of his well-off aunt and uncle, and are attending a military academy. But, Damien becomes all too aware of his true nature, and begins to use his powers to get back at people who antagonise him.

With a few deaths under his belt, and several ones he may not have been aware of, Damien sets to take down his nearest and dearest.

Not as shocking or as well put together as the first, this is far from a terrible sequel. Several memorable deaths, particularly the ice rink one, are almost on par with the excellent beheading scene in the first film. The effects are not out-of-this-world striking, but are effective.

Not particularly frightening, but with some creepy undertones, this film tries to keep up the religious styling of the first (what with Damien being the son of the beast and all!), but it doesn't rely so heavily on it this time.

Jonathan Scott-Taylor's performance is not particularly scary. But that's not a criticism, as Damien's not the creepy demon child he once was. He's going through the realisation of his powers and purpose. What is creepy is what he will become. In the first film the child, like most children, has not fully developed his moral compass, and the powers just gave him the ability to do what he wanted. As a teenager Damien has more of a choice, and the scary thing is his own hormonally driven decisions to kill. He's a confused kid, like everyone was at that age. The only problem is, he knows what he's supposed to grow up into...

I, as usual, found myself kind of feeling bad for Damien. He didn't ask to be the spawn of Satan. And like a lot of misguided people, he's just doing what he thinks he should. Of course, that's no reason not to salt and burn the little bugger before it's too late!

The worst thing about this film is it has long boring moments which kind of allowed me to lose interest now and again. But, as I mentioned already, some of the death scenes make up for these.

Not great, but much better than some sequels out there and nicely tied into the first film's ending.

[Image: 20th Century Fox]

 

Hani